


Make it good

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: Iris’s new boss bad mouths the Flash and drags Iris into it (based on the Scott’s spoilers we got way back, written mid-season 2)





	1. Chapter 1

Furious wasn’t a strong enough word to describe Iris's current state. She was also struggling to find a filthy enough curse with which define her new boss right now. And just when she thought they had had a break through, that they had reached an understanding, that they could, would, get along. 

Granted, kissing your boss might not be the best strategy, but she thought it had meant something. Even if they were a little tipsy at the time; she was waiting for Barry at their regular bar - they were going to play darts, and he didn’t make it; some disturbance at the CCMoMA that had kept his hands full most of the night, first as the Flash and then as a regular CSI - when she had spotted Scott, drinking alone, claiming he had been stood up by someone he met on Tinder. 

Now, they were having editorial problems; he thought her opinion about the Flash was, well, completely and totally wrong, questioning every single line about him she had written, so she had figured that, maybe, surrounded by different walls than the ones that they usually were when they had their already customary rows (even if it had been only three weeks), they would be able to work things out.

She wasn’t expecting the kiss, and maybe the shots and the margarita, and the feeling of being kinda low on Barry’s list of priorities at the moment, hadn’t exactly helped, but after talking for a while he turned out to be someone she saw herself opening up to. 

She hadn’t realise just how much she needed to talk about Eddie (ironic, considering she had been a psychology major) until it all started to come out, in a huddle and mostly incoherent she guessed, but it had helped. And then Scott said it wasn’t healthy that she hadn’t had kissed anyone since Eddie, and she agreed, she probably did need to just fuck someone to get it out of her system, and he was there, all tall and fashionably dressed and smelling nice and she wasn’t about to fuck her new editor like that but a kiss couldn’t hurt, so she kissed him.

The next day he called her in his office and apologised profusely, saying he was drunk and it had been completely unprofessional but she had made a joke and he had laughed and since then they seemed to be on the right path.

Until now.

Now she contemplated her completely ripped article about the latest meta-human Barry had caught and what it should be her byline reading _by Iris West and Scott Evans_ and she could kill him right about now. 

Iris took one steady breath, because she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her shaking, and opened the door to his office without knocking, causing him to jump from his chair, and asked, in the most composed voice she could manage, trowing the newspaper on his desk;

“What the fuck, Scott?”

“I take you didn’t appreciate my editing,” he retorted, in very calm voice, which only accomplishment was to make her blood boil.

“I don’t care who the fuck you are, nothing in the world gives you the right to twist my words like that, so no, I don’t appreciate your editing. Next time you are that dissatisfy with my article you pull it, you don’t do this shit.”

“I would just like to remind you," he told her, closing the door behind her and still refusing to match her tone; “that I’m your editor, and therefore your boss, and this is a work place, so I’m not very pleased with the language.”

She dropped herself on one of the chairs he had in front of his desk and said;

“Well, if you’re gonna fire me then fire me, if you aren’t then you fucking deal.”

He sat back down in front of her, impassive, waiting for her to continue and she didn’t want to give him any of what he was expecting at the moment, but she couldn’t help it, this was bad, so bad in so many levels. 

It would hurt Barry so much, it made it sound like she didn’t agree with anything the Flash had been doing and she couldn’t even begin to grasp on how she would fix it, what she would say to Barry, how on earth she could apologise for it, how on earth she would correct this publicly, so it just came out in form of word vomit, as Scott seemed to inspire it out of her;

“Do you have any idea that my career, my role on his public figure, on how he is perceived by this city, my relationship with him, all of that is endanger by the fact that you decided to use my research on the matter and change the meaning of every word I had written and keep my name on the fucking byline.”

“Your relationship —" he started, but then seemed to change his mind; "It was three in the morning. I couldn’t call you. I gave you credit for your research.”

“Next time you fucking call me. And don’t you ever dare to use my name again.”

She pulled herself up by the same second her phone started to ring, showing Barry’s photo on the called ID and something cold slid down her insides. Maybe the fact he was calling her should be a good sign, if he had seen it already at least he wasn’t freezing her out, and whenever they would actually talk, they manage to figure things out, so she took another deep breath, holding it in;

“Hey.”

The voice that answered back at her was rushed and small, like he had been crying, when he said;

“Iris, I need to talk to you.”

They had so many things hovering over them those days that it was difficult to be sure what exactly that meant. Just for a second Iris believed, or most likely wished, it could be something other than the article, that it could be about them, that they could once and for all just sort every fucking thing between them out, but the timing was too weird to be that, so she said, in the most neutral tone she could manage;  

“I know.” 

“You — Rooftop?” he asked.

“Ok.”

“How fast can you be there?”

“15 minutes,” she said.

“Ok, I’m waiting.”

Scott had been studying her intently throughout the conversation and she prayed he hadn’t figure anything out. It would destroy her if he did, but he kept quiet until she said;

“I have to go, I have to go fix this fucking mess you made.”

“Iris —”

But whatever he was going to say died on his lips, and he swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing on his throat and for the first time during the conversation he looked a little shaken too, as he questioned her;

“Was that the Flash?”, and when she kept quiet he asked; “Are you in love with him?”

“It’s none of your fucking business,” she replied sharply. Maybe she should have said no, but when she considered denying it, it died on her lips.

“Iris,” he tried again, but she cut him up telling him;

“My article for the anniversary issue is ready, I haven’t proof read it yet, but seeing as you are just going to change everything anyway you can proof read it, I’ll email it to you right now and I won’t be here for the rest of the day, I have to clean the mess you’ve made for me, if you have a problem with something I’ve written, you text me, email me back, send a fucking carrier pigeon, or you pull it, I don’t care, just don’t use my name, ever again.”

He kept his eyes on her, intently, a little disconcertingly even, but he didn’t fight back, or told her she couldn’t go, he just asked;

“Are you going to the anniversary tonight?”

The next day would be the 200th year anniversary issue of the Central City Picture News and they were having a gala to commemorate it. Presence was short of explicitly mandatory, everybody knew that if you weren’t in the hospital, dying, you had to go. Iris had been dreading it for weeks now. Debating whether or not to invite Barry as her plus one, mulling over on what exactly would that mean, and if she was ready for it to mean it, and now it was too late. She was the one too late this time, so she just told Scott;

“I don’t know yet.”

And she left, his door open behind her. She was tired of the man already in her life making decisions for her. She was absolutely not about to let another one start it too.


	2. Chapter 2

Barry's heart was at his throat, and it took a lot for him to feel that way this days.

At the STAR Labs, while Cisco, Caitlin and Harry kept asking him questions and developing theories, excitedly, he felt like he was watching the conversation as an out of body experience. It wasn’t like he didn’t know he loved Iris, it was just, now he had to tell her this and how do you tell someone they are literally what keeps you from disappearing from the face of the earth? 

He had given up not sounding like a teenage boy already, he was feeling like he used to whenever he was trying to ask her if she wanted to go to a high school dance with him instead of going with dates, except this was so much bigger.

This was telling her that she was the most important person of his life, that he couldn’t live without her, that he needed her, and not in some philosophical metaphysical way, he actually, quite literally, needed her. And when she walked through the doors of the Jitters's rooftop, hugging her grey overcoat close to her body, trying to keep herself warm in February weather, he felt all the air being expelled from his lungs. He couldn’t understand himself all that it meant, and now he would have to explain it to her.   

“Barr,”

“Iris —”

They called each other in unison and after a second-long pause they started, together again;

“I’m so sorry —” Iris started

“I need to tell you something,” he said, but wait, _she was sorry?_ ; “wait, you’re sorry? What for?”

Iris froze, her face in a questioningly expression, and she answered him, in a small, apologetically voice;

“Just — my article. You didn’t call me to talk about my article?” she asked.

“What? No, I haven’t read your article today yet,” Barry said. 

“Why did you call me then?”

“I need to tell you something,” he told her.

She walked past him and sat on the bench, taking a deep breath that made him wonder what could be so bad about her article, but before he could question her, Iris asked;

“Ok. What is it?”

“Ok. Right,” it was his turn to take a deep breath, rubbing his hands together absently, automatically, pacing in front of her, trying to organise his thoughts; “we think we figured something about Zoom.”

“Oh,” she retorted, a quizzical look on her face, “oh, right.” 

He stopped again. Wondering why there was disappointment on her face, wondering what she was expecting, if it was all wishful thinking the way he had read her disenchantment as expectation, of another declaration perhaps, of him deciding it was time for them to sort things, the unsaid things, or maybe that was all just a wish. He lost himself in studying her expression as it turned into something else and she questioned him;

“Barry? What is it? You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

“No, nothing is wrong exactly, I just, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

She stood up, stepping on his direction and placing her hand on his arm, trying to sooth him; 

“Ok.”

“Well, do you remember that time," he asked; "when I almost died on the sewers because —”

“Of Grodd, yes. Is he back?”

“No. No, that’s not it.”

That wasn’t the right place to start it so he grew silent again. He pulled her in for a hug, stepping in her direction, over her space and she didn’t back away, she hugged him back, holding him, her arms under his, her warm breath on his neck and he inhaled the smell of her, of her coconut shampoo, of clean clothes and her soap, and her perfume. 

The perfume he had gone with her to choose, the summer before they started college, because she claimed she was a grown up then and she needed a real grown up perfume. To which Barry had replied that real grown ups wouldn’t call themselves grown ups. 

He waited hours while she would smell a thousand bottles, spraying them in a little paper, and then trying a couple on her skin, pushing her wrist (and then her arms, when the wrists were already occupied), up his nose, her soft skin grazing his lips, and he had had to make an indescribable effort to be able to concentrate on the perfumes and not just let himself be completely entranced by Iris.  

He remembered perfectly the sales lady referring to him as her boyfriend; _if you think you need the help of someone other than your boyfriend I’ll be right over there_ , and the happiness he had felt when Iris didn’t corrected her, nodding and pulling him around by the hand the whole time, leaving his stomach full of butterflies.

In the end she picked his favourite one, warm and a little sweet, and soft and sunny, just like her, and he had had a very compromising dream that night, so much so that the next morning he had woken up feeling a little filthy and it had taken him a few hours to be able to face her, and he was used to compromising dreams about her.

Now he processed it all himself as well (kind of like how he would learn something explaining it to her when they use to study together for a test on school), as he told her, looking into her deep, warm, brown eyes, how speedsters had to have this thing that Cisco had named lightning rod, and how that was what kept them from disappearing on the speed force and gave them the ability to control and fully access their power, and she listened to it all, about how every time something happened to his powers it had been, mainly because of her, about how when he went back in time the first time it had been because he kissed her, and she listened, just like she had the night he told her he loved her, in silence, looking back at him, into his eyes, intently, tears in her eyes, and a puzzled face when he told her;

“… well, then, we figured, you are mine.”

“I’m yours?” she asked.

“Not — my lighting rod that is, not mine, mine.”

She inhaled sharply, her easy smile absent from her lips, looking away from him for a bit, sitting down the bench only to pull herself up again, and it took her a while before she was able to ask him;

“What does that mean?”

“That if Zoom figures this out you’re in danger. Cisco is developing a tracker," he tried to sooth her; "something for you to use to signal to us that you’re in danger.”

“Ok.”, she nodded at him.

“Till then we have to be careful, I mean, I don’t know how, or, what —" he closed his eyes, shaking his head, and then he opened them again, so he could look at her as he said; "I’m sorry, Iris. I’m really sorry.”

It didn’t seem fair that she should be threatened just because he loved her. But speaking anything coherently was out of his capacities at the moment. He was happy she wasn’t freaking out, so her smile, the one full of love, directed at him, was much more than he felt like he deserved. And as usual, didn’t failed to make him feel better. 

She never actually answered him though, he wasn’t really expecting an answer, he was used to it by now, like he was used to most things about her. Sometimes Iris would be really quiet, he figured it was her way of processing things, he would ramble about it, she would mull over it. But she stepped into another hug, tapping on his shoulders to let him know she wanted it and, even if very little she would do did surprised him, it would never ceased to make him marvel at how she always did do exactly what he needed her to.

When she pulled away he brushed the tears off his cheeks and asked;

“Ok, what about your article then?”

She pushed her hair behind her ear and looked at the ground before facing him again;

“Right, about my article.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey.”

Barry sneaked up on her and Iris almost dropped the glass of wine she was holding.

She had asked him for the anniversary celebration after all, after what he had told her (which she was trying really hard not to obsess over). She figured asking him for a party should be the easy task compared to that, and he had said yes, even after learning about the article. Even after her mostly silence response to all the… _information_ he had given her.

“You came!” she said.

“Yeah," Barry smiled; "sorry I’m late.”

“It’s ok," she said; "I’m glad you’re here. I thought you might have changed your mind.”

He stood by her side, arms almost touching, and she could smell his minty breath and feel the warmth irradiating from him as he answered;

“No, it was just a small crises. It’s handled," then he pointed at the stage where Scott had just finished welcoming everyone and Barry added; "Nice speech.”

“Yeah," Iris said, and then she thought about the article again and reassured him; "don’t worry about that, I’ll fix it.”

“Yeah, I know, I believe you.”, he told her softly.

She took a little step back to allow herself to take him in and was surprised as to how tall he stood, for once, with an unexpected confidence. She felt like she never had truly noticed just how beautiful he was. He was Barry, she was used to it, but all the sudden it surprised her, so she grinned at him, in his black suit and a bow tie.

“I like the bow tie,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t know if it was this kind of party,” Barry justified, suddenly shy, fixing the bow tie.

“No, it’s perfect.”

“You look…”, he rubbed his hand in the back of his neck and looked at the ground before forcing himself to look back at her in the eyes again; “I — I like your dress.”

“Thanks.”

She smoothed his suit on his shoulders. Not that it was needed, but she couldn’t help it, the acute and overwhelming necessity to touch him. He watched her, his eyes burning on her face, as her hands travel down his arms, and something on his gaze left her tingling. She allowed one of her hands find his and traced his palm down with the tip of her fingers, suddenly filled with a shyness she couldn’t pinpoint where it had come from that was shortening her breath and stopping her from facing him. Instead she looked at their fingers, intertwining them, and listened as to how that cause Barry to inhale sharply and it was like every nerve ending of her hand had expanded and it was all she could feel, except for the tingling, and her heart trying to escape her body, and the sound of it, beating against her ears, and it made her curious. 

Curious as to how would it feel to have his body touching hers all over, to have all the other never endings expanding, on both of her hands, her lips, her neck, her belly.

When she heard someone calling her name it seemed to have waken her from a trance, and Barry let go of her hand abruptly, like it had suddenly burned him, like they had been caught doing something far too inappropriate for him to carry on.

Iris turned to see Scott, standing in front of them, analysing hers and Barry's hands with sharp eyes, as he told her he was really sorry and asked if she would please dance with him, he needed to talk to her. And Iris obliged after she had Barry assuring her he wouldn’t leave.   

“You know, you’re lucky I’m such a nice person,” she let Scott know as he led her to the dance floor. It was a non descriptive boring jazz song, but the band was good, it made her wish they would play some real jazz, as he answered her, looking her dead in the eyes;  

“Oh, you are not nice.” 

“Excuse me?” she was sure she misheard it. He wouldn’t insult her when he hadn’t even finished apologising yet, not as far as she was concern anyway, but he told her again;

“You are not nice, Iris.”

She turned to leave him, alone, in the middle of the dance floor, and it would serve him right, but he stopped her, bringing her closer to him, by the arm, as he tried to fix it;

“Wait, I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

“Oh, how do you mean it then?” she asked.

“You are kind, and you believe in justice and you fight for it. You are also very fierce and intelligent and stubborn. And gorgeous. You are absolutely gorgeous. There’s nothing nice about you. Nice is a cup of tea not strong enough.”

“I drink coffee,” she told him. Damn Scott Evans for being charming and smooth and down right infuriating; “tea is for the weak, and the englishman.”

“All right,” he laughed, and then after a beat he told her; “I like you better when you are not writing about that Flash.”

She looked up at him from under her lashes. Her full of mascara lashes, fluttering them at him;  

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.

“It is," Scott guaranteed her.

“You know I was hired to write about the Flash, right?”

“Yes, I do." he agreed, then he shook his head slightly and added; "Iris, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through, I didn’t mean to _use_ your name for the byline, I was trying to give you research credit and I screwed up. I’m really sorry.”

She was glad he wasn’t done apologising. She liked him. She wanted to be able to like him and have him making her a better journalist without feeling guilty or disloyal every time she would take his advice. But she wanted to make him work for it for a bit too;

“Are you?” she probed.

“Yes.”

“Ok, then,” she caved.

“The Flash will forgive you then?” Scott wanted to know, and there was a bit of teasing in his eyes but she responded to him anyway; 

“Yes.”

“Good,” he told her, and for the first time in all those weeks he actually sounded like he genuinely valued her connection with the Flash. He looked towards Barry and she followed his eyes to find him watching them; “So, skinny white boy, what’s the deal between the two of you?”

“He’s my best friend.”

“You’ve never said the best friend was in love with you,” Scott said.

“He is not,” Iris defended. It was one thing to sort of know that herself, when she was falling asleep and couldn't get her thoughts to steer away from it, it was another to have a man she had kissed notice it, and point it out to her, but Scott smiled wickedly down at her and added;

“So you’re also in love with him too.”

It wasn’t a question this time, so she rolled her eyes in response;

“What’s with the fixation on my love life?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking about asking you out, actually,” he said, like that was so easy.

She couldn’t help the smile. The warm feeling of being wanted spreading through her, even if she didn’t want him back, not really. Not when she would think about holding Barry’s hand just a minute ago. Barry, who still watched them from the bar, attentively.

“ — but I don’t want to do that if you’re fucking a superhero or if you’re in love with your best friend, or if you’re in love with the superhero for that matter.”

 _All of the above_ , she thought, _except for the fucking part which would hopefully be fixed in short_. But instead of telling him that she let him know;  

“You’re not cute.”

“I bet I could find a multitude of girls on this ball that would disagree with you.”

She rolled her eyes again. In a world without Barry, Scott would have been _just so_ , but in a world without Barry she probably wouldn’t be the person she was now, so maybe she would find him just infuriating instead of charmingly infuriating.

“Well, if you are not going to kiss me,” he told her, “you should go there and kiss him.”

A little laugh escaped her lip. The absurdity of it. She didn’t understand why he would be probing her to it, but she asked anyway;  

“Just kiss him?”

“Yeah, that easy," he nodded; "but make it good. You know how to make it good.”


	4. Chapter 4

Barry watched as Iris’ eyes fluttered. She was fighting sleep as he rambled about the problem they had had with Cold earlier that day, which was the reason he had been late for the party.

It was 4 in the morning, which meant it had only been 9 hours ago but it seemed like a life time, one of those days when too much happens, and that you think back, certain it was longer than 24 hours.

He stopped mid-sentence (he could tell her everything later), and brushed her hair behind her ear, smiling down at Iris, laying on her bed, between her sheets, naked, except for the big, dangling golden earrings they had been too busy to take off the first time, and that on the others, trying to be smug, but mostly failing, Barry asked her to keep on because he liked the noise it made as she rocked back and forward over him, her hands on his chest, as her boobs dangled on the same rhythm of the earrings, which got a _such a nerd_ out of her, but she obliged. 

He took them off now, delicately, trying to not wake her up (they couldn’t be too comfortable and sleeping on them seemed like a recipe for disaster), and her eyes opened again, finding his as she fought against the weight on her lids, and murmured in a voice full of slumber;

“I’m listening, keep going.”

“I’ll tell you in the morning”, he whispered back, folding into her and placing a little kiss on her temple.

He couldn’t help the beam of amazement. When she had asked if they could go to the balcony of the hall where CCPN was having their party, on cold February weather, he thought she would want to talk about a myriad of things; about Zoom, about what he had told her that afternoon, about her article, maybe even something about Scott; they looked too comfortable dancing together for Barry’s liking. What he was not expecting was her nervous energy, or the fact that she sat them both down, only to jump on her feet again and position herself right in front of him. 

Now, Barry had been tricked into to thinking she would kiss him a number of times throughout his life.

Once, when they were fifteen, on a Sadie Hawkins dance she had asked him for, as they swayed to a song she really liked and she hummed it on his ear. Then again, junior year of college, when she came to spend the week on his tiny studio because they had different spring break weeks, and she had slept on his bed, insisting they would share it cause she refused to let him sleep at the couch, and one night, they had been drinking a little and laughing a lot and she was so carefree in her _really_ short pyjamas shorts, and she had always gotten touchy when she was a little tipsy but that night she kept snuggling on him, her hands all over his arms and his stomach and he was so certain she would kiss him he could feel her lips on his.

Then once in his lab, when actually she was just trying to tell him about her theory and the meta-human database she had so skilfully built, even though he was sure, _oh, so sure_ , for a second there, because of the way her eye tinkled.

So he had promised himself he would never be fooled again. It hurt too much. So much that not even the fluttering feeling he would get on his lungs every single time would compensate it.

So when Iris placed herself by his side, and then in front of him again, really close, their eyes leveled by the fact he was half sitting on the balcony’s security grid, he still refused to believe in it, willing the butterflies away, until he felt the tip of her tongue on his bottom lip.

Having permission to touch her was the most liberating feeling, kinda like when he first discovered his powers and just running could make him _free_.

Except, unlike with his powers, he couldn’t imagine it ever fading away, him ever truly getting use to it. After their first kiss, the one he erased, he never got to dwell on the fact that he had had her, that she would allow him to hold her close, bite her nipples and kiss her neck and lick her belly button and _lower._  There were impending deaths back then, and the possibility of the end of the world. Now there was nothing but Iris, and the feel of her, under the pad of his fingers, tracing her down, from her collarbone, to her breastbone, right in the middle of her boobs, down her belly, to her inner thighs, where she was still warm and sticky, as she sighted softly, making cat noises, and twitching her legs together in a sleepy way, and he would question the authenticity of her imminent slumber if it wasn’t for her slowing breathing.

She fumbled for his arm, pulling him down from his sitting position to lay by her side and by the way she rubbed her hands on his arms and chest and nuzzled in the crook of his neck, throwing her leg over his body, he figured she was probably feeling the same freedom.

He pulled the covers over them, per her request, _I’m cold,_ she said, and she snuggled closer, half over him and he let his hand trace down her spine to rest on the small of her back and wondered if with her ear on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart — _it’s really fast_ — she could also feel the way all he seemed to breath was her.


End file.
